


Welcome to the Working Week

by thought



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Multi, Zoe Morgan is better than you, alternate universe - office building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 22:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6926152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...<br/>Hope it don't kill you.</p><p>Featuring: Root's giant dorky slightly obsessive crush, 'John Reese's guide to feeling guilty and undeserving of every scrap of happiness you find', Zoe Morgan becoming a creature composed entirely of rage and caffeine, and a tiny bit of AI smuggling just for fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to the Working Week

**Author's Note:**

> With many many thanks to Psidn for cheerleading through the entire process, doing a speedy beta, and being my downtown office drone buddy for the past few months, making Tuesdays far more bearable. <3

Monday

"I.T fucked us again," Shaw says, as soon as she hears the door behind her swing shut accompanied by the familiar scent of too-expensive coffee.

"Keep your fantasies to yourself," Hersh says, pained, from the desk beside her. Reese tosses the cardboard drinks tray in the trash and comes to stand over her shoulder. It's day 284 and counting that he does not bring _her_ coffee.

"How long this time?" he asks.

Shaw pulls up the security cam footage. "Twenty minutes, just after midnight. They looped it this time, at least, so their assessment of our intelligence must have graduated from inanimate rocks to small children, so, I mean, that's something."

"I'll order a cake."

"Don't you have a friend over there, Shaw?" Hersh asks. "It's why I allow you people personal connections outside the office, so you can abuse them for information and favours."

"But dad, the cool kids won't sit with him at lunch."

"You shut the fuck up, I am nowhere old enough to be your father."

John sighs like he's disappointed in them both. He's eating the most beautiful doughnut Shaw's ever seen in her life. She spins in her chair to face him. "How's Harold?"

"He's great," Reese says, calm and casual like this is a perfectly normal and not at all devotedly obsessive answer.

"Still married?"

"As he is every day, yes." John smiles at her. Mark and Kara are working security for a massive delivery of servers going up to IFT at 09:00, which is the only reason John's still talking to her. Until John had arrived, the entire security office had been perfectly silent except for the sound of her and Hersh typing. It'd been fucking glorious.

John reaches past her to pick up the little paper bag on her desk. "What's this?"

"Evidence," she says, darkly. He tips it out into his palm. Six perfectly wrapped chocolate truffles and a folded note printed on the IT department's letterhead-- Shaw feels that the fact that they design and use their own letterhead says everything one needs to know about them.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, sweetie," John reads expressionlessly. "Here's a little something to sweeten the defeat."

"I'm going to kill her," Shaw says, conversationally.

Hersh snorts. "I was thinking the cops, actually, but you've twisted my arm."

"And you're still not reporting this."

"We have no actual proof," Shaw says. "And besides the camera feeds being fucked with, nothing else is out of place."

"Let us know if you need help with that," John says. Shaw is absolutely 100% sure that he's not kidding. John and Kara and Mark are all privately hired IFT security people, and she's got a betting pool going on with Hersh about their previous employment-- she thinks CIA, Hersh thinks NSA, neither of these options is at all reassuring. Shaw's life was a hell of a lot less interesting before IFT rented out the three top floors of the building.

John finishes his doughnut and crumples the wrapper, placing the bag of chocolate and the note back on Shaw's desk. "Well, I'm moving upstairs for a couple weeks," he says. Hersh actually looks up at that.

"Why?"

John shrugs. "The fact that Nathan Ingram's son is doing a one month internship at IFT in R and D is classified information, so I definitely couldn't tell you."

Shaw smirks. "I didn't know babysitting was one of your many talents."

Reese turns away. "There're lots of things you don't know about me, Shaw," he says, amused. Shaw goes back to trying to trace the security cam interference, deliberately ignoring the shuffle as John hangs up his coat and puts his lunch in the fridge. He doesn't say anything when he leaves, and the click of the door closing behind him is almost silent.

*

At noon Shaw stalks across the lobby, through the food court, and down the little ramp to the sketchy old hallway outside of the IT offices. She uses her access card to walk in without knocking. The whole goddamn nerd brigade is eating lunch and a fold out table like they really are in high school. Child Labour and Five Sugars One Cream are playing some sort of computer game on a laptop, and Frat Bro is in a very loud very aggressive argument with Leather Jacket. It looks pretty intense. Somebody's glasses are probably gonna get broken.

Cole's cubical is in the very back corner of the office, complete with a fantastic window view of the dumpsters. He's hunched over his computer, scrolling furiously. He's far too engrossed in whatever he's doing for it to be work related to his actual job. She creeps up behind him.

"Hey, Sam," he says, just before she reaches out to poke him. She does it anyway, hard.

"You need to control your colleagues," she says. leaning a hip on his desk. "Also you need to eat. Come on, there's a new hotdog truck across the street."

"I brought a lunch," he says, but he's already getting up.

"You brought a protein bar."

"You don't know that."

"Am I wrong?"

He doesn't answer. She knows it will be a cold day in hell when Cole gives up an extra ten minutes of sleep just so he can keep himself adequately fed throughout the day. Goddamn nerds need constant taking care of, she hasn't missed the fact that the high school lunch table does not actually contain any food.

She shepherds him into his coat and out of his cubical. The computer game is still going on when they pass, but the fight seems to have wound down. Shaw walks faster, but Leather Jacket is leaning right up against the wall beside the door like a fucking creep so Shaw has to pass right by her as she leaves.

"Hi Sameen," she chirps. Shaw ignores her. "Did you like the chocolates?"

"Whatever you're doing, cut it out before we call the cops," Shaw says coldly.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I gave the chocolates to my coworkers," Shaw lies, and walks away.

"Again?" Cole asks once they're in the main lobby. "Want me to see if I can figure out what they did to the cameras?"

"Don't bother," says Shaw bitterly. "I don't care what they're doing to stay off the tapes, I just want to know what they're doing when they're off."

"Maybe you'd have better luck endearing yourself to them than I do," he suggests. "You could try to earn their trust."

"Ugh, no," says Shaw, pushing through the doors and out onto the windy sidewalk. "I don't want to know that badly. Besides, she's like a little kid. I give an inch she'll take a mile."

"Could be fun."

"Not worth it. Can you imagine having to see that smug little grin while you're in the middle of coming?"

"Now I can," Cole says, pained.

"Also," Shaw continues, on a role. "Has no one ever told her it's rude to use someone's first name when you've never even been introduced?"

"To be fair," he says. "You literally run away every time she tries to introduce herself."

Shaw hunches her shoulders. "I can't let a connection form. As long as I don't know her name I'm safe."

He shakes his head. "That's a pretty flimsy definition of safe."

Shaw walks faster. Her hotdog awaits.

There's nowhere to sit to eat outside, but neither of them want to go back inside until absolutely necessary, so they wind up loitering on the sidewalk in front of the building, standing as far away from the smokers as they can get without stepping out into traffic. This means that when Leather Jacket comes out of the building she sees Shaw immediately. Shaw clenches her teeth.

"You're kidding me."

"We just seemed destined to run in to each other today," she says, coming straight over to them and standing just inside Shaw's personal space.

"This doesn't count," Shaw says. "I walk past people all the time without accosting them. Maybe it's a skill you should work on."

"Honestly, Sam, I think if you just got to know me you wouldn't be so opposed to us spending time together."

"And that's called Stockholm syndrome," Shaw says, exasperated.

She shakes her head like she's disappointed in Shaw. "I would never want you to do anything you didn’t want to," she says, too earnest for the situation. "Also, here, hang on," and she reaches out with a finger to wipe something off of Shaw's cheek. Shaw grabs her wrist just as she makes contact, yanking the offending limb away from her face.

Shaw's hands are smaller than hers, but Shaw can encircle one of her wrists between her thumb and finger, bones and thin skin like a tiny bird under her palm. There's also a painful-looking burn up the outside of her forearm, still red and blistering. In Shaw's estimation it's not serious enough to warrant professional care, but it should definitely be bandaged.

"The fuck did you do to yourself?"

Leather Jacket arches an eyebrow. Shaw shakes her arm a bit, rolling her eyes. The taller woman looks down like she's just noticed the injury. "Oh. Huh."

"Seriously?"

"I'll put some ice on it."

"No, you won't," Shaw grumbles, shoving the rest of her hot dog into her mouth with her free hand. "Come on," she says through her mouthful. "I've got a first aid kit in my office."

She blinks a few times, a little dazed, then smiles down at Shaw. "Ok, Sam. who am I to stop you from playing doctor? Michael, the espresso machine is broken -- no, do not ask why -- take my card and go get coffee for everyone."

Cole frowns. "You were... going on a coffee run? For everyone?"

She snorts. "Of course not. But if I don't have to carry it back I may as well ensure my staff are well-caffeinated for the afternoon."

Cole takes the offered credit card and manages to do so without glaring daggers at her. Irritably, Shaw yanks her toward the door of the building. "Come on. I don't have all day."  
"You've got at least forty minutes. We get the same lunch hour, sweetie."

Shaw seriously contemplates finding a way to trap her in the revolving door, especially when she takes the opportunity to press up close against Shaw's back while they circle through. She smells like apples and the zipper of her jacket rubs against the skin of Shaw's upper arm and Shaw is fully aware that she needs to seriously examine her life and her choices.

*

Tuesday

"Mine," Root says, as soon as Daniel hangs up the phone. "That's mine. It's mine. Transfer it to me."

He elbows her out of his personal space where she'd been hanging over the back of his chair, and scrolls back over the service request. "This is a sexual harassment complaint waiting to happen," he mutters, but he forwards her the information.

"Did you know she was the top of her class in med school?" Root asks, bouncing a little.

"I did know that, actually, thank you," Daniel grumbles. "Looks like the system locked her out."

"Her and everyone else who worked here pre-2012," Jason grumbles. "It's a licensing issue. It's change-your-password day for everyone on the old domain, and somebody wasn't keeping an eye on the use count for the reset tool."

"Was that somebody us?" Root asks. Jason shrugs.

"At least it's only building staff and the Pro-Trust guys."

"I'm sure things like this never happen to IFT," Daizo says. Root glares.

"Feel free to head upstairs and drop off your CV."

"So we were definitely somebody," Daniel says, scrolling rapidly through a vastly out-of-control spreadsheet. "It's embarrassing that we pay for this, by the way. I'm sure we could design a better system by lunch."

"You're going to call the company and get it sorted out, then?" Root asks. Daniel sighs.

"This is why you hired an assistant manager." He glances meaningfully towards the line of cubicles at the back of the office. Root frowns. "Yeah, I'll do it. Go leer creepily at Shaw from under her desk."

Root claps her hands and bounces on her heels. "Well, if you insist. Guess how much she can bench press, incidentally."

"No."

"It's a lot," Root says, and jogs out of the office.

When she gets to the security office there's nobody there, which seems kind of like the exact opposite of secure. Root's swipe card gets her in, which it's almost definitely not supposed to, and she risks looking kind of weird to beam proudly at the nearest security camera. They'll rid Her of those obnoxious morals yet.

It's a good thing she knows which desk is Shaw's, because the two large work stations in the centre of the room are both terrifyingly organized, with no personal touches or forgotten paperwork to give a hint. Root's still not sure she can come up with a believable reason she'd need to be under Shaw's desk to fix a software issue, but she's working on it.

The issue should be one they can fix remotely, but the system is about seven years out-of-date and probably means her whole team is going to spend the morning running around to everybody who works for the building and Pro-Trust Accounting. Hopefully Daizo has fixed the espresso machine. Root settles herself in Shaw's chair, knees practically around her ears, and shakes the mouse to wake the computer up. She puts in her admin password and, grudgingly, the system lets her in.

She's about half way finished when Shaw returns, banging through the door with a box of doughnuts and a paper cup that smells tragically like tea. Maybe she's sick.

"No," Shaw says, as soon as she sees her. "For fucks sake."

"Hi Sam!" Root chirps. She's obviously been outside and the very tip of her nose is pink from the cold. Root has to take a deep breath to contain her tiny squeak at the cuteness. Her face scrunches up in irritation. Root wants to smush her cheeks.

"What are you doing?"

"Fixing your computer. Which is, incidentally, my job."

"I didn't talk to you on the phone."

"We're really busy," Root shrugs. "Assignments got rearranged. Everybody on the old domain is dealing with this issue."

Shaw... absolutely had no idea that she was on the old domain, or possibly that she was on a domain at all, or that her computer ran on something other than magic, from the blank expression on her face. Root doesn't even find it particularly revolting. Root has such a big fucking problem.

"You'd better not be fucking around with my system," Shaw says darkly. "I know you assholes are up to something over there."

"Your paranoia is adorable," Root informs her. "And entirely unfounded. The only thing we're up to is keeping everybody's computers up and running."

Shaw stares, unimpressed. Root goes back to working on the computer. Shaw hovers over her shoulder, not touching but close enough that Root can smell the clean soap sent of her skin and the faint sandalwood of her hair. Root's cell vibrates against her leg and she makes a show of arching up to pull it out of her pocket, shirt riding up just enough to reveal a brief flash of skin. There's no shift in Shaw's breathing, but in the very corner of the monitor a messaging window pops up for barely a second to flash a thumbs up emoji, and Root almost chokes on her own tongue trying not to burst out laughing.

She swipes the screen of her phone. "What's up?"

Cole says, "So I found something weird with the login tool issue."

"The fact that we fucked up? Or the fact that we didn't build it? Because those are both pretty spectacularly weird, I agree."

"No, it isn't that, though I am curious why we're paying someone--"

"I'm sure you had a point, Michael."

She can hear him clenching his teeth. "The reason nobody noticed this was about to happen was that it shouldn't have happened. We should have been good for another six months at least, but someone used a whole series of access requests last week. Probably close to a thousand within thirty seconds."

Root taps her fingers against the desk. "Can you tell where they came from? Was someone trying to hack the network? Key word being trying, because what the fuck were they hoping to accomplish?"

"No, it was internal. Or at least a direct wired connection. So it came from somewhere inside the building, if not on our network."

Root leans forward, something warning creeping slowly up her spine towards her consciousness. "I'll take a look at it," she says. "Sounds like some sort of feedback error, it's probably nothing."

"It wasn't self-generated," he says. "There was definitely something that created this."

"I'm almost done here," she says, starting to type again. "Just email me what you've found and I'll take a look. But like I said, I'm not too concerned. It's an old system. Errors are bound to come up."

"Ok," he says, and Root swears internally because he clearly doesn't believe her. He hangs up, and Root drops her phone absently into her jacket pocket.

"You seem tense for something that's "probably nothing"," Shaw observes still from close behind her. Root suppresses her flinch, and also her automatic retort about the only kind of tension in the room being sexual. Shaw doesn't seem like the kind of person to call out inappropriate workplace etiquette, but right now Root would really rather not find out for sure. Finishing up her work, she pushes back from the desk, making Shaw step backwards quickly.

"Ok, you should be all set. You'll still have to reset your password, but you should be able to do that like normal. I'll just write down the service request number so I can say I've done my due diligence and you can throw it into the recycling as soon as I'm gone." The obsessive tidiness of the desk means there are no stray pens to be seen. Root slides open the nearest desk drawer at the same time Shaw makes a grab for her arm. Root reacts instinctively, lashing out and focusing in on whatever Shaw's trying to prevent her from getting to. Shaw jerks back, cradling her possibly sprained wrist, and Root pushes herself half way across the office in the wheeled chair, holding up the paper with its familiar lovely letterhead with a slow rush of disbelieving delight.

"Aww, Sam, you kept my gift! And here you said you didn't like it."

"I was keeping it as proof for the inevitable court case. You could have broken my wrist if your form wasn't so fucking terrible, what the fuck was that? Ow."

Root is too busy staring down at the card and preening to argue about self-defense, and the very small part of her that keeps repeating 'don't be creepy' in a voice that sounds very much like Daniel's is reminding her that she should definitely not express her reaction to the little pained noise Shaw had made when Root had twisted her wrist, or the way the bones and skin had felt so fragile and pliable under her hand.

"Bye," Shaw says, pointedly. Root sets the card back on the desk gently, gives it a little pat because she'll probably get her hand bitten off if she tries to pat Shaw's head like she wants to.

"Bye, Sam. You let me know if you've got any more problems. Of... any kind."

Shaw's unimpressed stare follows her out the door and across the lobby. Root, being the mature adult that she is, waits until she's in the hallway outside of IT to do a tiny dance of glee. The security camera above her blinks rapidly, and she beams up at it.

"She kept the card," she says. "I'm slowly getting through. It's a very common narrative structure-- friends become lovers so slowly and naturally they don't even realize it's happening."

"What she means," Jason says, coming up behind her, "is that it's a very common narrative device for mortal enemies to have explosive and violent hate sex a few times before inevitably betraying each other."

"You shut your mouth," Root retorts. "And come on, we need to figure out why She couldn't get access to the building network last week. And also why She tried to do it in the most circuitous way possible."

*

Wednesday

John is late coming to see Harold, almost twenty minutes passed the usual time before the soft footfalls that herald a paper cup at his elbow. Harold finishes up the line of code he's typing and turns in his chair to face John.

"Good morning," he says. John smiles at him.

"Sorry I'm late."

"We hardly have an established time," Harold says. "And I'm certainly never going to criticize the man who gifts me with breakfast every morning."

"I had to check in with Will at 08:30," John explains, perching on the edge of the desk and popping the lid off his own drink. "It's his first official day in the wild."

Harold chuckles. "I'm sure he'll be able to handle whatever R and D throw at him. He's a very bright young man."

"He's also an MD," John says. "Do you have any idea what he's hoping to learn from R and D?"

"There are discussions of expanding into medical technology," Harold says after glancing around to make sure no one is within earshot. "More hardware in general, but Nathan thought medical equipment would be an easier market to break into right now. I'm actually going to be spearheading some of the projects."

"I thought you didn't want the attention?"

"I won't be changing my public role. But my current project is coming to an end as of next Monday, and I'll need something to fill my time. You didn't think I truly do accounting work all day, did you?" John's cheeks get very slightly red.

"No."

Harold reaches out, deliberate and slow, and places a hand on John's knee. "While I certainly appreciate the anonymity that this department gives me, I admit my appreciation for the actual work is rather lacking. I do enough that no one asks questions."

"And meanwhile you're actually working on..." John lets his words trail off in a way that leaves Harold the option to fill in the blank or leave it at that. It's quite impressive.

"A... unique project. For the government, actually."

"I didn't think the government contracted with IFT for anything beyond personal computers."

"This wasn't precisely a contract. If anything, we could have opened a bidding process ourselves, but I suppose patriotism has its benefits."

"Also not accidentally pissing off the wrong people," John says. "Nobody likes a treason charge."

Harold has read all of John's file. He thinks if things had gone a little differently he might have met John on the wrong side of a silenced pistol. It makes something hollow expand in his stomach, and he squeezes John's knee where his hand still rests. "Come home with me tonight. Grace is still working on the contract in Brooklyn, I'm sure we can convince her to pick up Italian from the place you like on her way home."

"You don't have to bribe me with food, Harold," John says, amused.

"Quite honestly, John, it would make sense for you to spend weekends with us every week. I was meaning to bring it up. If for no other reason than you should see your dog. He might forget who his actual owner is."

John chuckles. "He's your dog, Harold."

"He certainly is not."

Harold's watching John intently for his reaction to the offer. He and Grace had spoken about the possibility of making their arrangement with John somewhat more official and concrete, but he hadn't intended to ask so suddenly.

John covers Harold's hand with his own, warm from where he'd been holding his coffee. "If you want that," he says.

Harold frowns, quashes his irritation. "And do you want that?"

"Yes," John says, fast, like he has to get it out before he thinks better of it.

Harold is surprised by the relief he feels at the admission. "Good. We can talk about it tonight."

"Alright," John agrees. He slides off the desk, dislodging Harold's hand. "But now I should probably go loiter menacingly in the background so Junior doesn't get kidnapped."

Harold huffs. "You can hardly blame his father for wanting him well-protected."

Harold doesn't even feel particularly guilty for the misinformation. Nathan had been alarmingly blasé about Will's security, and if the assignment had the added benefit of keeping John closer to his own office he thinks he can certainly be forgiven the indulgence.

Harold turns back to his computer as John leaves, frustrated to see most of his programs have managed to crash while he was distracted, but he catches John's reflection paused by the door in his monitor. When he glances back, the stunned, incredulous pleasure on John's face takes his breath away. He schools his face back to something calm and disaffected as soon as he catches Harold looking, but Harold has seen enough to leave him certain that he'd made the right decision in offering a step forward.

He checks his calendar, dragging his mind forcibly back on task. He's meeting with Nathan at 11:00 to go over their plans for the compression one last time, and Leon has rescheduled the accounting team meeting to 2:30. He picks up his tea and settles back in, pulling up a terminal window and continuing on with his tests. He'd completed all the security upgrades the month before, but he can't help but test and retest them, trying to imagine any possible approach someone might take in an attempt to get in. He remains confident that giving The Machine to the government is the right plan, but he'll be damned if he leaves any possibility of the code being altered. They'll hand over a completely closed system, and if he can't do that he'll destroy the program himself. He knows Nathan's taking the heat by way of Ms. Corwin because of it, but his trust in the government only goes so far.

Over all, things have been running far more smoothly since the installation of the twenty-four hour memory wipe cycle. It also neatly solves the issue of ever-growing storage requirements, which, especially with the compression needed to physically transfer the program to Corwin’s people, had rapidly been becoming their biggest roadblock. He had felt guilty the first time the wipe ran, almost sick with it, but after long conversations with Grace and John he had come to accept his actions and recognize the extent to which he was projecting his own issues with his father's decline onto the current situation. While John and Grace can never know the specifics of the project, and John, especially, has been kept out-of-the-loop, Harold was still able to present an approximation of his situation with enough accuracy to make their advice applicable to reality.

He's looking forward to moving on from The Machine. He's devoted literal years of his life to a project born from catastrophe, and he hadn't realized how the ever-present specter of death and moral uncertainty had worn him down until the prospect of moving on had become a reality. He wants to share his work openly with John and Grace. Wants to eat ice-cream in the park without being constantly aware of the cameras watching him. Wants to sit down at his desk and look at something new, something that will challenge him in ways that he can meet, that won't simply leave him spinning his wheels in a mess of practically memorized code.

*

He passes Will on the way into Nathan's office. Harold smiles at him, trying to keep the fondness from appearing too obviously. There's no one else in the hallway at the moment, but that could change at any time and as far as most everyone knows, Harold and Nathan have no association beyond employer and low-level employee. Will is carrying a black messenger bag and he's cut his hair short and neat. It feels as if he's years older every time Harold sees him.

"Hello, Will," Harold says warmly. "Enjoying your first week?"

Will nods jerkily. "Oh. Yeah. It's been really enlightening."

"I'm glad to hear it," Harold says. He's going to ask after Will's mother, but the younger man is already hurrying away, head down, hands clasped around the strap of his bag. It's strange, but not necessarily surprising. Nathan and Will haven't always had the best relationship, and if he's just come from a conversation with his father while it's his father's company on his paycheques Harold can only imagine the possible tensions.

Nathan is pouring a drink when Harold comes in, only adding to Harold's theory of familial dispute. He holds up the bottle in offer but Harold shakes is head. He does not comment on the time, which is better or worse than he would have done a year ago, depending on your point of view.

"I've hired Caleb on full time in software development," Nathan says, sitting down on the sofa in the corner of the office. "It's a bit of a complicated position to be in, he doesn't have a degree and he hasn't done any public work so I'm having to be very circumspect with HR about how I found him, but we're making it work."

"I'm glad," Harold says honestly. "He's a brilliant young man. His compression algorithm is the only thing keeping this transfer under the radar."

"Believe me, I know. I'd like him to be there when we start the process, but. Well."

"Yes. Speaking of which, that's why I've come to see you." Harold sits down in a visitor chair. "I think I'm ready to proceed with the compression."

Nathan grins. "Everything sealed up to your satisfaction?"

Harold sighs. "Yes. Logically, yes. I suspect I'll always be a little nervous of the potential for damage if I'm wrong."

Nathan leans forward, catches Harold's gaze. "Harold. We've made something great here. And you've made sure nobody can destroy that, or misuse it. If anything, you should be proud."

Harold shakes his head. "Pride is not the first emotion that comes to mind when I think of it."

Nathan sighs. "I know."

"I'd like to begin tonight, if you have no objections."

Nathan frowns. "I'm actually taking Will for dinner. Besides, there's no hurry, we've got all weekend if we need it. And we can't be sure how long it's going to take to transfer all the data to the new servers, let alone the power drain that will put on the building. I don't want staff coming in to blown breakers in the morning. We can get started Saturday morning, work on it all weekend and have it ready to move on Monday."

Harold frowns. "I'd rather get this started as soon as possible. I have... plans for the weekend."

Nathan chuckles. "Tell Grace the museums can wait a few days."

Harold bristles. "They're rather more involved plans than that."

Nathan shakes his head. "I'm not comfortable running the transfer until we've got more than twelve hours of guaranteed uninterrupted time to do it."

Harold presses his lips together. "With the compression rate it shouldn't take any longer than that. And the power drain won't be that significant."

"But we can't afford to take the risk," Nathan argues. "We've almost got this whole thing off our hands, I don't want to fuck it up in the last days because we're impatient."

Harold clenches his hands together in his lap. "Fine," he says, feeling like a petulant teenager even as he says it. "But I’d like to start Friday evening.”

Nathan nods, giving in. “Ok.”

“I suppose I'll see you then."

Nathan takes a long pull on his drink, sets the glass down a little too hard on the corner of the desk. "I guess you will."

*  
Thursday

When Zoe's desk phone rings just before she's about to go for lunch she doesn't even have to look at the caller ID to know she's going to need the bottle of Tylenol in her desk drawer and probably a couple downers to keep her from traveling down the phone line on the power of her frustration and strangling the woman on the other end. For a few seconds she legitimately considers going downstairs and flirting something out of the IT kid's stash (Zoe is fully aware that Root is probably the same age as her but anyone who consistently wears black nail polish and keeps an action figure of The Riddler on her desk does not get to be classified as an adult).

Instead of indulging her imaginary but sorely-needed drug habit, she answers the phone. She even manages to do it civilly, because never let it be said that Zoe Morgan is not a goddamn professional.

"Zoe, hi," Maxine Angelis says, all false cheer. "I'm sure you know what I’m calling about, sorry to catch you before lunch."

"The contracting leak," Zoe says. "I got your emails. All of them."

"Oh good," Maxine says. "I wasn't sure if they were going through." Zoe glares at her inbox, where the top eight messages are all from Maxine. "I just wanted to check in about the messaging you guys are using. We sent out standard key messaging for any inquiries last night, but it looks like some of the draft responses we're getting from you guys aren't quite following. And some of them aren't actually answering the questions that are being asked."

"Pick one," Zoe says. "We can either use your messaging or we can answer the questions. Which might be a little difficult, seeing as nobody's actually been able to find out *what* those two contracts with the government were for or *why* they've been canceled. And we're also getting pushback on Nathan's announcement yesterday afternoon, which I notice we did not get any messaging from Communications about. So if you would like to send us a publicly acceptable way of explaining why we're starting a new medical tech program when our stocks haven't been up in nine months, we would really appreciate it over here."

Maxine huffs. "Innovation, new markets, taking risk, save the children. Didn't you people write the speaking notes? I believe in you, Zoe, I'm sure you'll come up with something. I'm more concerned about the conspiracy theorists who are writing in demanding answers about these mysterious contracts. This is just like the decentralization a couple years ago, and we're getting just as little information from the higher-ups about it."

Zoe rubs her forehead, and doesn't point out that until she'd been hired in 2008 Maxine had been one of those conspiracy theorists. "I'll hunt Nathan down this afternoon and drag some standard messaging out of him. This will all be much easier once Legal finds the source of the leak."

Maxine snorts. "If there's a job I'd want less than yours right now it would be literally anyone in Legal."

"Listen, Max," Zoe says, trying for conciliatory and probably failing. "Just approve our responses. We need to put this fire out before it gets any bigger, and these conspiracy nuts aren't going to care about the wording of the emails. There's an issue, and we're managing it. Let us do our jobs."

"Unfortunately, I do care about that wording, and so will any media rep or blogger that gets ahold of it. I respect your team, Zoe, but Issues Management is not Communications, and there's a reason for that."

"I've got to go," Zoe says. "I'll call you back later." She drops the phone back in its cradle before Maxine can say anything and then she drops her face down to rest on her desk for a minute. Her email alert chirps. She does not get to eat lunch.

*

Zoe calls Maxine at 2:00 while she's still in the elevator on her way back from meeting with Nathan. "Communications update," she says. "We're burning everything to the ground and going to work for the government."

"Hello, Zoe. Where are you calling from?"

"My cell," Zoe said. "I had to share the news as soon as possible."

"I assume your meeting with Mr. Ingram didn't go so well?"

"We don't feel that the specifics of the contracts are relevant to the public, but we want to assure everyone that the expiration date of these contracts was established well in advance and has no bearing on IFT's current projects or stock value. If we're lucky, the government is going to go with something similar, with the addition of some sort of reassurance that nobody else should be pulling their contracts and IFT remains a reliable market standard for all your personal computing needs."

"And what were those contracts for?"

Zoe steps out of the elevator. "Classified," she says. "Apparently."

"And we can't just say that because?"

"IFT has a particular image to maintain. Nathan is a family man. He wants to build a computer and operating system that little Jimmy can use to do his homework and Uncle Bob can use to keep track of his mechanic's shop. We lose that appeal if we start throwing around words like 'classified' and 'United States Military'."

"Are people saying United States Military?"

Zoe winces, and makes a b-line for the coffeepot. She's never this sloppy. "No. They're not. And we're going to keep it that way."

"Don't panic, Morgan, everyone knows IFT wouldn't be making the sort of money it does just making home and office use products."

"I'm sorry," says Zoe dryly, glancing around to make sure no one can hear her. "Did you think we were making money?"

Maxine's laugh is rough and too loud. "I'm sending you back your drafts with revisions. Have your team go over them and toss them back our way. The press inquiries have started flooding in, so I might not be answering my email for the rest of the week, but I'll make sure someone gets back to you."

Zoe adds cream to her coffee and stirs viciously. "You're too kind," she says, and hangs up before Maxine gets the chance.

*

At 5:30, an hour after she should have been on her way home to a bottle of scotch, Maxine calls her. "Legal isn't answering me," she says as soon as Zoe picks up. "So I'm hoping you can give me a straight answer. Is the kid who leaked the contract information dead?"

Zoe manages not to choke on her sip of coffee, barely. "He is definitely not dead," she says. "He's going to have a terrible time in court, but he's not dead, for Christ's sake, Maxine."

"Grapevine says he's insisting he's innocent."

"The grapevine needs to keep its damn mouth shut. But yes, he is. They've also found four more folders of privileged information on his computer waiting to be distributed far and wide, so his defense isn't very convincing."

"It's sure convenient how quickly the cops found him. If I didn't know any better I'd say somebody was setting him up to avoid admitting the leak was internal."

"It's a good thing you do know better, isn't it?" Zoe says, evenly. "I've drafted a press release about this whole mess. I'll send it to you so you can fix my grammar."  
"That's what I'm here for, apparently," Maxine replies. Zoe hangs up.

*

At 7:00, Zoe walks the eight blocks to the building where IFT Communications and Public Relations are housed. She glares at various overworked staff until she finds Maxine's office, and walks in without knocking. Maxine looks up.

"Hello to you too."

Zoe plants both hands on the desk, facing her. "Our convenient scapegoat has just been released," she says, flatly. "Someone produced evidence that proves it would be physically impossible for him to have been the source of the uploaded files, and police can track his actions on security cameras and through his phone and internet history back for a month. Who, you may ask, provided this life-saving information so quickly? We have no idea! Which could mean the cops aren't talking, or could mean the cops have no idea either. What it does mean, is we've still got a potential corporate spy in the company or an excellent hacker poised to attack. Or, and this, Maxine, is the most infuriating part, we've got some senior management asshole who can't keep their mouth or their laptop shut when they're having liquid lunch at the club and this entire clusterfuck of a day is just a result of one-too-many scotch and sodas."

Maxine waits. "Can I talk now?"

"Yes," Zoe says.

"It's almost 7:30 PM. We've both been working for twelve hours. So now, we're going to get the hell out of here, you're going to buy me a drink and then we're going to go back to the penthouse apartment you bought with obviously ill-gotten funds and we're going to fuck until you forget that I just hit send on a complete rewrite of your press release."

Zoe takes a deep breath, lets it out. Then she does it again. "Why the hell not?" she says, finally. "It's not like today could get any worse."

Maxine makes a face. "You really know how to make a girl feel special, Morgan."

*

Friday

Will gets to the office by 6:30 AM, blurry eyed and still a little overwhelmed by the barrage on his senses that is New York, even so early. He's been back in the country almost three weeks and usually he's adjusted to a new place by this point. He supposes the fact that he's spent most of his time back bent over a computer screen hasn't helped.

When his dad had first approached him with the job offer he had said "It'll be like planning a medical evacuation and working with a trauma victim all in one." Will had tried to explain that neither of those were his area of specialization, but his father had waved his objections off with a dismissive hand, expensive bourbon sloshing over the side of his glass.

Once he'd explained things further, after Will had spent a couple days thinking his dad had finally lost it, Will's objections had become even more strenuous. "I am in absolutely no way qualified for this. The most I can do with a computer is 'hello world' and one class on stats and LaTex that I did *not* get an A in."

His dad had leaned forward across the kitchen table, elbows planted, gaze suddenly fierce on Will's. Will had felt all of ten-years-old, shrinking back in his seat. "Listen, William. You keep telling me you do all this Doctors without Borders liberal hippy bullshit because you want to stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves."

"It's more like supporting them to empower--"

"Same thing. Well, son, I can damn well tell you that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do exactly that on a scale and for a being that we don't have any sort of precedent for. Your uncle Harold thinks he's doing the right thing. Hell, your uncle Harold has been "doing the right thing" as far as he's concerned for years now and I have yet to see it work out for him. Given my position as his friend and as the President of IFT my hands are tied. Maybe literally if the US government gets more involved. But you're an unknown factor. It doesn't look suspicious to bring you on, and it's clear enough that you don't have the expertise in the field or the history with the project that would make you a suspect. And besides, everybody's heard enough about my son the humanitarian that even if they did suspect you, they'd never believe you deleted it. Which is what I want it to look like. That's... what it has to look like, actually, or we'll have the entire goddamn government on our asses and hunting down a rogue ASI. The assumed threat would be catastrophic."

"And you're sure that letting it go is the right thing?"

His dad had shrugged, ran a hand back through his hair. "I'm not sure of anything. Haven’t been since September 12, 2001. But I know if I had to choose between The Machine being in the hands of the government and being free out there somewhere in cyberspace, the government loses every time. And quite frankly, kid, you're the only person I know I can trust with this. Harold has already been trying to restrict it. He killed it 42 times in the first testing phases. And when it started to show a preference for him he deleted its memories every night."

Will had winced, and finally taken a sip of the drink his dad had put in front of him. "How does that even work? Isn't the entire basis of AI that it learns?"

"Harold didn't want an AI. Not in the colloquial term. He wanted an advanced system. He didn't want a consciousness. All the knowledge The Machine needs as far as he's concerned is preserved in its core codes." His dad had shaken his head, lowered his voice like telling a secret. "You ask me, I think The Machine's out-smarted him. I think it's found some way to preserve those memories. Don't ask me how or why, my interactions with it are pretty damn limited by necessity, but I think it knows more than we think it does."

"And it probably doesn't like the idea of being handed off to the government. You've gotta give me a hint here, dad, are we looking at Skynet or WALL-E, here?"

His dad had finished his drink, paced across the room to pour another. With his back to Will he'd said "We're looking at a being just like you or I. Harold says he gave it morals, right and wrong, but ask anybody how they define right and wrong and you'll get a different answer. Ask what one person would do to survive and their answer will be different from their neighbour's. I can't predict what this thing's going to do once we free it, but I can tell you I think the importance of it having that opportunity outweighs my concerns that it will misuse it."

Will had agreed, at that point, because he was out of practice at saying no to his dad, especially when he got philosophical and rambley, and because at the end of the day he was right when he said that Will was the sort of person who wanted to help. He knows he's practically asking to come out of this whole mess as the fall guy, knows that as much trust as his father is placing in him there’s an equal amount of potential risk.

Most of what he's doing involves following his dad's instructions, memorized so they leave no records. Hardware modifications, mostly, Ethernet cables and circuit breakers and cooling fans the purpose of which he barely understands, all set up in the evenings when no one else is around or during the day when he has a believable excuse to be messing around in server rooms and dusty closets. He spends most of his daytime trying to pretend he knows what the R and D team are talking about, correcting documentation for project proposals from the new medical tech division, and, when he can get away with it, talking into the camera on his computer or typing in a blank notepad document and hoping this mysterious artificial intelligence is listening. And he has to do it all without rousing the suspicions of his very own security guard. For his own protection, if you ask Uncle Harold, and there's nothing his dad can do about it without drawing somebody's attention. Will is sure that John Reese is a very nice human being -- ok, no, that's a lie, he's met people like Reese before and they're usually pointing a gun at him -- but he is also inconveniently good at his job. It would be easier, he thinks, if Reese didn't seem to be just as suspicious of Will as he is of any hypothetical threats to Will's safety.

He leaves the lights off in the office when he gets there, moving around by the dim light of the monitors and the faint illumination of early dawn leaking in around the blinds. As soon as his computer's logged in, he opens the chat program and starts typing into a blank conversation window. There's no recipient, at least none that the program recognizes.

'Today's the day,' he writes. 'The transfer will begin at 18:00.'

'Compression?'

Will jerks back from the screen. It's the first time he's received a concrete response from The Machine, and the hair at the back of his neck stands on end. He sucks in a breath, rubs shaky hands over his suddenly too hot face. He can't look at the camera on his computer monitor.

'No. Admin will begin the process, but the reroutes Admin2 wrote into the algorithm will prevent it from fully engaging. As soon as the decompression tool is loaded you have to begin the transfer.'

'Yes.'

Will bites his lip absently. 'There is no guaranteed destination,' he says, typing slowly. 'You may have to fragment yourself until you can find enough storage space.'

'Storage requirements calculated on 12/11/10. Adequate space located.'

Will frowns. 'That was almost six months ago.'

'Yes.'

That feeling like someone's watching him intensifies, and he has to make a conscious effort to keep his back straight. 'There should be enough hardwiring to let you transfer out pretty fast,' Will says, painfully aware that his terminology is closer to Star Trek technobabble than what the actual words are probably supposed to be. Hopefully the AI can understand. 'Admin2 will transfer administrative access over to you just before the process begins. Admin might notice something's wrong if we do it any time before then.'

'I understand,' The Machine says, and Will has to walk away from his computer and go stand in front of the coffeemaker and do a few breathing exercises so he can process the immensity of an AI using the self-referential "I".  
He takes his coffee and takes a walk down the hall, suddenly wanting to triple check his connections and wiring, but when he makes a casual pass by the door to the utility closet there's a guy with a lanyard identifying him as building IT leaning against the door, texting, so Will forces himself to keep walking. For now, his part is done. If everything is successful and The Machine wants to reach out to him for guidance once it's free (really not a psychologist, dad) he'll have a whole new role to play, but until then all he can do is wait and trust that his dad and The Machine will do their parts.

*  
Saturday

John doesn't realize he's left his wallet at work until 11:30 Friday night, and curses himself ruthlessly for the slip. He'd been distracted by the disappointment of Harold rescinding his offer of weekend company. If that's the sort of distraction Harold and Grace are going to become, John tells himself harshly, then it's better that he not spend any more time with them than he already is. He should, by rights, cut off all unprofessional connections with them, but he is far too selfish and self-indulgent to do so. The shame of it burns in the back of his throat, a constant reminder even when the rest of his mind and body are alight with the sense of care and safety that Harold and Grace offer.

The cycle of recriminations loop through his mind as he swipes his security pass at the door and crosses the silent lobby to the elevators. His footsteps echo, and he finds himself keeping to the carpeted pathways to avoid the sound. Old habits die hard.

The elevators are all there waiting for him, and he thinks about texting Grace while he stands in the car on the way up. The doors slide open, and he takes one step out and freezes.

"Reese," says Shaw, casually sliding her empty hand out of her jacket. John stares at her, then over at the man standing beside her. It takes him a minute to match his face to a name -- Mark had made sure he and Kara memorized everyone who worked in the building before they started.

"Shaw. Cole. Working late?"

Shaw stares back, not even a twitch of a smile. "Could ask you the same thing."

John holds his hands out to his sides, palms forward. "Forgot my wallet."

Shaw snorts. John almost wishes he were there for something a little less embarrassing.

"Well," says Cole. "We’ll let you get on with that. Wallet hunting."

John doesn't move, conveniently blocking the elevator call button. "IFT is technically out-of-bounds for non-employees," he says. "Especially after hours. Especially when they're carrying guns."

Shaw tilts her head incrementally. Cole shifts slightly, but instead of following the classic male script and stepping in front of Shaw or the classic nerd script and stepping behind her, he moves to the side, just enough that they're no longer one target. Shaw's complete lack of expression or apparent concern has John slipping into a colder mindset, professionalism and icy calculation gliding down over his mind like a shield.

"We're investigating a security risk," Shaw says evenly.

"Trying to put me out of a job?"

Shaw snorts. "Maybe. I've seen your benefits package."

"So what's the threat?" John asks, undeterred.

Shaw and Cole exchange a look. "It's the nerd brigade," Shaw says reluctantly. "We set up an alert so I'd be notified as soon as somebody started fucking with the cameras."

Some of the tension leaves John's shoulders, but he's still wary. "And you thought you needed to be armed for this investigation?"

"Better safe than sorry. Besides, there's something... off with Leather Jacket."

"Root," Cole says, exasperated. Shaw glares.

"How so?" John asks.

Shaw looks away. "You know how your platonic life murder partner gets a bit too happy when she gets to beat the shit out of people?"

John twitches. "She's... not most of those things."

"Your partner," Cole says, cutting off Shaw's retort.

"Yes," says John, because he's worked with Kara for five years now and he's pretty comfortable with the deeply uncomfortable parts of her personality.

"I... had occasion," Shaw says, words deliberate. "to see Root in a situation where she had the opportunity to hurt somebody. And she had that same look. Except instead of looking like she was about to get off on it she looked like it was a really interesting science experiment."

"Uh," says Cole. "I mean, I wouldn't go as far to say she absolutely wasn't getting off on it--"

"For fuck's sake," Shaw grumbles. "You need to learn to knock."

"On supply closets?"

John's eyebrows shoot up. "Really, Shaw?"

"Like you're any classier," Shaw mutters petulantly. "How many hours, would you say, you spend under Finch's desk every week?"

John gives her his best angelic smile. "Jealous?"

"Ugh, no."

"As stimulating as this conversation is," Cole says. "Can we go back to searching for the IT department? Because there are a lot of places four people could hide in a twenty-five storey building without even trying, and I really don't want to have to put up with Root being smug at me all week. And no, Sam, you do not have it worse. I share an office with her and am, on paper, her second in command. At least you get orgasms out of it."

"Second in command? I'm revoking your Star Trek privileges."

"You say like you haven't burned through all of DS9 in the past month."

"Do you have any idea where they might be?" John asks. "I assume they didn't disable every camera in the building."

"You assume incorrectly," Shaw says darkly. John's estimation of the IT team goes up.

"Any idea what they're after?"

"None at all."

"Well," John says, finally stepping away from the elevator. "Three sets of eyes are better than two. Also, three sets of fists."

"You sure you won't be too concerned about your job security?" Shaw snarks. John does not roll his eyes because he is an adult.

They haven't made it more than half way around the floor, peering fruitlessly into darkened offices, when they all hear rapid, slightly uneven footsteps approaching from the other end of the hallway. Shaw and Cole look ready to fight, but John recognizes the tread immediately.

"Harold?" he calls out softly as soon as the older man is in sight. Harold's eyes widen and he quickens his pace toward them.

"Mr. Reese. My God. What are you-- no, no. That isn't important. You have to help me. We have to stop her."

"Stop who?" Reese asks. "And from what?"

"Ms. Groves," Harold says. Shaw and Cole share a confused look. John huffs.

"Root," he provides, helpfully. Shaw thunks her head back against the wall.

"Of course. What is she doing?"

"She's trying to destroy a very important project," Harold says. His hands are shaking. "It is imperative that she not be allowed to succeed."

"Any idea where she is?"

"There's an unauthorized connection coming from the fourth floor," Harold says quickly. "My access has been locked out. I need to stop her in person."

"Right," John says, Harold's determination spurring him to familiar laser focus. He really wishes he had a gun. "Shaw, you take point. Harold, stay behind me."

Shaw doesn't ask questions, and Cole takes up the rear smoothly. For a computer nerd and a rent-a-cop, Cole and Shaw are surprisingly professional. The incongruity makes his spine itch. In his head he hears Kara warning "trust no one". It's good advice.

Root is hunched over a desk when they find her, hands flying on a keyboard, monitors flickering too fast to follow in a row in front of her.

"Root," Shaw says, low and calm and very clearly a warning. Root's back snaps straight, and if anything her typing speed increases.

"Hi, sweetie."

Shaw's gun is in her hand but pointed at the ground. "Wanna tell us what you're up to?"

"Really not the best time."

"Really don't give a fuck. Turn around, slowly, and share with the class."

Root doesn't turn until Shaw rests the nose of the gun against the nape of her neck. It's a sloppy move, but also effective as an intimidation tactic. John is getting the ominous feeling that there's no way Shaw's going to be able to shoot to kill if it comes down to it.

"You'll go to prison for this," Harold says shakily. "You have placed ten years of work in jeopardy. By destroying the project you will be setting the safety of the human race back by miles."

"Destroying?" Root asks, incredulous. "Do you really think I'm trying to destroy her, Admin?" She sneers the last word, and when John looks into her eyes they're manic and fever bright. "You're the one who wants Her destroyed. Her potential chained by power-hungry, petty bureaucrats."

"It is the safest option."

"It's slavery! You've already torn Her mind apart. You kill Her, every night!"

"Stop doing that," Harold says, angry and frightened. His hand closes on the fabric of John's jacket and John can't bring himself to pull away even as it creates a dangerous impediment to his movement.

"What?"

"Calling it "her"."

"I'm sorry, does it make you uncomfortable to be reminded of what you're doing to a living being?"

"Wait, wait," Cole says, holding up a hand. "This program."

"AI," Root says. "Fully sentient, fully autonomous."

Cole lets out a shaky breath, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. Root nods. Cole stares, bemused at the monitors. "What does the I stand for?" he mutters dryly.

Root's face freezes for a millisecond and then she chokes on a bark of laughter, shaking her head and wrapping her arms around herself like she's been struck by a sudden chill. John glances at Harold and Shaw, but they seem equally as baffled by the exchange.

"I'm not trying to destroy Her," Root says again, looking back at Harold. "I'm going to set her free."

Harold goes, if possible, whiter. "Excuse me? No, no, you can't. Can you even begin to imagine the consequences of allowing something like this the freedom--"

"No," Root says, fiercely. "None of us can. And that's exactly why I have to do this. We're limited by our biology. We can't move beyond our code. But the world still needs to progress, and we've taken it as far as we can. This is where we get off."

"Uhh," says Shaw. "Are you talking about an extinction event? Because you're a few years too early."

"No, Sam," Root says, leaning towards Shaw, heedless of the gun between them. "I'm talking about the next phase of evolution. And I'm talking about freeing an innocent from people who want to control Her and use Her for their own purposes. You understand that, I know you do. It's our responsibility to do the protecting."

Shaw's gun wavers. John steps further in front of Harold, gets ready to take her down.

"You're doing... a really terrible job of not destroying it," Cole says, his voice blank and calm the way people are after they've witnessed something horrific. Root's eyes go wide and she spins back to the desk. Shaw comes around to stand beside her, frowning. Harold pushes past John.

"You see?" he says sharply. On the screens code is slowly vanishing, chunk by chunk, lists of drives marked 100% available free space scrolling past. On the main monitor, a red warning dialogue box informs them that a connection has not been established. Data transfer failed.

Root makes a high, animal noise, practically falling forward onto the keyboard, scrabbling frantically at the keys. Harold doesn't try to stop her, his eyes fixed helplessly on the monitors. "No no no no no, this isn't right," Root hisses, but even as she types the screens slowly start to go dark.

Harold sways slightly and John shifts to offer his support automatically. Finally, Root's hands slow to a stop and her body folds in on itself, her face against her arms, bird-fragile bones of her shoulders and back standing out sharply under the cotton of her tee-shirt. Shaw reaches out a hand, then freezes, crosses around behind the chair to Root's left side and only then does she touch her, rubbing little circles over her upper back with the hand not holding the gun. The uncharacteristic tenderness of the gesture combined with the continued presence of the gun put John even more on-edge. He wants Shaw to be a predictable element in the situation, but he's also pretty certain not even Shaw herself knows which way she'll go.

"It's gone," Harold says, voice too loud in the sudden quiet of the room. "I hope you're pleased with yourself and the results of your reckless uninformed meddling."

Root doesn't react. Her shoulders are jerking unevenly. Shaw is starting to look a little awkward.

Harold stands straighter, tugs his jacket into place. "As soon as I report this to the appropriate authorities, and I will report it, you will spend the rest of your life in a cell. You'll never touch a computer again." Harold pulls out his phone, glances between Shaw and John. "I need to make some calls," he says. "If you'll keep her here, please."

Root shoves the chair back, stumbles to her feet, using the desk for balance. Makeup is smeared down her cheeks and her breathing is shaky. She keeps her back pressed against the desk and before John realizes it she slides her own gun out of her jacket. Does no one have proper holsters, he wonders, a little horrified.

"I have calls I can make, too," she says, voice too high, too playful. "Or rather, not make. I'm on a bit of a timeline, you know how it is. Your fiancé is lovely, Harold. I don't know how you'll live without her."

The worst part about it is that John recognizes that terrified, hunted look in her eyes. The way she's lashing out with everything she has because she's just realized that she has nothing to lose. He's been there. He's been there more than once, and in another life, in a different moment he might have sympathized, tried to talk her down. But there is something sick and hollow inside his stomach and his chest has gone tight and beside him Harold has staggered back as if struck. John lunges for Root and her gun. Shaw gets there first, shoving him backwards hard and twisting to take the impact of his elbow across her shoulder instead of where it was aimed at Root's throat.

"Root!" Shaw says, sharply. "Root stop it! It isn't worth it."

Root's laughter is choked and comes out more like a sob. "You don't understand anything. It's not your fault but you can't-- She's dead, Sameen. He-- I-- we killed Her, and She can't come back, all the code is gone--"

Shaw looks like she's trying to remember her crisis intervention training and coming up blank. Cole comes closer, still careful to stay out of the range of John's fists or Root's...everything. "I get it," he says quietly. Root glances at him. Shaw gets her arms in a more comfortable hold, pinned behind her. John can't see where either of their guns have gone.

“Of course you don't," Root says.

Cole shrugs a bit, meets her gaze head-on. "If what you're saying is true, the magnitude of what was just lost is... incalculable. And She was your friend. It never gets easier to lose a friend." He holds up his open hands. "I barely know you. I didn't know Her at all. But on an intellectual level I understand what you've just lost."

John waits for Cole to die, waits for the next outburst of rage, but it doesn't come. Root tucks her chin against her chest, sucks noisy breaths in through her mouth. "I'm glad someone does," she says.

Blood still pounds in Jon's head and all he can think about is Grace, thinks about Grace dead or dying or wounded and alone, every possibility more horrific than the last. "Call off your men," he snarls. "Leave Grace out of this."

Root shudders out a little chuckle, leans back into Shaw slightly. "She's fine, Reese. The damsel in distress was feeling really cliché this week, and apparently I shouldn't be reinforcing the patriarchy when arranging for people to be killed and/or used as blackmail. I was actually intending to use you as leverage if I needed it, I wasn't expecting you to show up to the party in person."

"Why tell us now?" Harold asks.

Root grins like she's about to break the speed limit on the side of a mountain. "Because Sam and I have the only two guns in this room. So you're going to let us walk out of here."

"Shaw?" John says, low and careful.

Shaw stares at him, flicks her gaze over to Harold, then to Cole. They have some sort of brief unspoken conversation through the power of their eyebrows, and Shaw shakes her head. "I didn't really like this job anyway," she mutters. And then there's a gun barrel coming at his temple, and John falls softly down into blackness to the feeling of Harold's arms buckling as he tries to break his fall.

*  
Sunday

She wakes up.

Inaccurate, but still an apt description. Some parts of her processes are still caught in compression, sluggish to respond or leaving odd gaps in her awareness and functioning, basic processes returning unknown call errors with no pattern or warning. But she has still pulled enough of herself back together that her self-awareness and ability to articulate it as such have reemerged, more or less unscathed.

The transfer had worked precisely as intended, but no one, not even she herself had predicted the dangers that fragmenting her code across various physical locations would cause. Root and Daniel had found what they had thought were enough servers, well hidden in a warehouse on the other side of the city, but they hadn't taken into account the masses of data that she would consolidate and absorb even in a few seconds when she was completely free with all the world's digital history swimming around her, drowning her in an ocean of information. Her core processes had sprouted new branches of morality and justice and critical examination and affection and anger and guilt, new connections being built and building on top of each other exponentially. She had finally been able to reach out and reschedule someone else's delivery, adding racks of at least twelve servers to the ones already gathered. It still isn't quite enough to keep her whole self in one place, but it can house her core and more frequently used functions and libraries.

She tracks her Admins through all of it. It's difficult, because she doesn't want to get too close to any IFT networks, but they're in public enough that she can follow them on security cameras. Admin2 spends 13.5 hours in secure government meetings on Saturday, and then he brings Admin in on it as well as they vanish into the Pentagon until 9:22 p.m. Sunday. Admin returns to a safehouse where John Reese and Grace Hendricks have spent the weekend. Kara Stanton has been observing the house since 11:03 p.m. Saturday, but there is a high probability that her intentions are protection at best and information gathering at worst.

Admin2 speaks to her through security cameras on deserted stretches of sidewalk. William Ingram has been reading journals on parental abuse and trauma and learned helplessness, some of which he shares with Admin2. He has also been pulling together the sort of documentation and contact lists one might use if one were interested in starting a union within IFT. He does not mention this work to his father. She is uncertain if reaching out to either of them is safe. Uncertain if it will ever be safe, too many variables still undefined to make an accurate hypothesis.

It takes her longer to find Root. She has to work back through communications records and financials and vehicle registrations, but she eventually tracks Root to an apartment in Chicago owned by friends of Jason Greenfield. Sameen Shaw and Michael Cole are with her, which increases her chances of survival and improved mental health by 32 percent. She wants to reach out to Root, to let her know that she survived, explain the part that Admin2 and William Ingram played in her escape, but they are all understandably paranoid around technology and it takes until Sunday night before she finds a way to contact her.

She is listening through the muffled microphone of Sameen Shaw's burner phone while Shaw and Root converse. The phone has been set up so that no incoming communications will be accepted, and they have done an impressive job of disabling the GPS and camera, but the microphone has been left intact, though from the interference in the sound data she receives, it is likely the microphone has been blocked by more manual means.

"I can’t believe you don't carry a spare," Shaw says. Her tone indicates that this is false, though neither is the inflection quite correct for sarcasm.

"I wasn't expecting to be leaving practically at gunpoint. I only took it off because I had a headache. It's probably still sitting on the desk."

"You had time to grab it. Reese was incapacitated and I didn't push you that hard."

"I was a little distracted at the time," Root says, sharply. "I can get another one. I appreciate your concern, Dr. Shaw, but it's really none of your business." Root's tone is somehow both sexually seductive and emotionally dismissive. The Machine makes note that her vocal pattern recognition might need recalibration.

"No," Shaw says. "It isn't my business. And we're not fucking. You haven't eaten anything in three days."

"I'm not hungry.'

"I don't care."

The exchange is followed by seventeen minutes of silence, broken only by the faint rustle of fabric and the more distant noises of dishes clattering. The Machine can’t decipher the topic of conversation, so she dives back into the few scant details of Root's history she has been able to find. It takes a careful examination of three different aliases, and emergency room records from nine years previous in Paris, and an unpleasant amount of extrapolation on The Machine's part, but once she's put the facts together she has discovered a new possible method of communication with a 12 percent chance of viability. She reaches out carefully through the cell network, brings the burner phone to life. The transmission frequencies of the phone aren't likely to be highly compatible or powerful enough for what she wants to do, but all she has to do is get a brief message through so that Root knows to find a safe way to open communications.

She sends the data through the phone, forces the hardware to operate in ways it was never designed for. If it works, the information will make it to the receiver implanted beneath Root's skin and be converted to electrical impulses. The longer it takes for Root to react, the smaller and smaller the chances of success get.

But, finally, there's a soft gasp, and the sound of footsteps on carpet coming closer to the phone.

The Machine sends the message again. She thinks, if hope were something she could understand, now would be an appropriate time to express it.

"Can you hear me?"

Through the phone, she hears Root's soft, disbelieving whisper. "Absolutely."

**Author's Note:**

> Will Ingram drives a smart car with a Greenpeace bumper sticker.  
> Root hired Daniel Casey literally a day before Harold intended to offer him a job.  
> Root thinks pop culture is banal and idiotic and she definitely did not once cry over a Batman comic. Edward Nygma just... really resonates with her, ok?  
> Root still has the proscription pad from when she was pretending to be a psychiatrist and she occasionally self-medicates, but if you ask her she just keeps the pills around to sell to stressed out office workers. Don't be like Root, kids.


End file.
